Troy

The question is: Can all the soldiers in Troy withstand the onslaught of just about all the movie critics in America? Noting that the film is based n Homer's The Iliad, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes, Homer's estate should sue. The movie sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie clich?s and demonstrates that we're getting tired of computer-generated armies. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe minces few words as he lays into this surprisingly lumbering $200-million disappointment. John Anderson in Newsday describes it as a big slab of cheese. But what most of the critics particularly object to are the performances of the three male leads. The worst casting in recent Hollywood history, comments Jonathan Foreman in the New York Post. Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun describes the casting as going woefully awry. Indeed, the only real praise being dished out by the critics in their reviews goes to Peter O'Toole, who plays Priam. His performance, writes Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer, should earn O'Toole the competitive Oscar he has thus far been denied. Philip Wuntch in the Dallas Morning News comments that it is Mr. O'Toole's heartbroken Priam whom you'll remember most vividly. Several critics, strangely, appear to take a neutral stance towards the film. Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, for example, gives it a split decision. A. O. Scott in the New York Times comments that for what it is -- a big, expensive, occasionally campy action movie full of well-known actors speaking in well-rounded accents -- Troy is not bad. In fact, Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune is among the handful of critics who found it to be quite good. Troy, he writes: is a huge, all-star sword-and-sandals epic, but it has all kinds of compensating rewards: flair and sweep, raging excitement, intriguing characters, visual grandeur--and a scenic force and dramatic intelligence. And Claudia Puig in USA Today calls the movie entertainingly epic eye candy ... a gripping, well-told adaptation of one of the oldest human dramas.